Tolkien, Pope Leo XIV and the Call to Stewardship (Sem)Course Level: Intermediate

This three-week, asynchronous course explores the intersection of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Catholic Social Teaching (CST). We will use Kaitlyn Facista’s Into the Heart of Middle-earth as our guide through Tolkien’s moral landscape and Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence), to ground our discussion.

Successful completion of this course earns 1.5 CEU's. Click here for more information about CEU's.

• Explore the CST principle of the Dignity of the Human Person by comparing Tolkien’s "small" heroes with the Magnifica Humanitas’s warnings against "optimizing" the human person.
• Consider the “Gandalf mandate” as a call to localized stewardship.
• Understand the Tolkien concept of being a sub-creator.

• Required Printed Book
  • Author: Facista,Kaitlyn
  • Title: Into the Heart of Middle-earth: Exploring Faith and Fellowship in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
  • Source: Ave Maria Press, 2026
  • ISBN: 1646803655; ISBN-13: 978-1646803651

  • Order Here

• Week 1: Human Dignity and the "Little Way" of the Hobbit

  • Explore the CST principle of the Dignity of the Human Person by comparing Tolkien’s "small" heroes with the Magnifica Humanitas’s warnings against "optimizing" the human person.

• Week 2: The Stewardship of Our Time (The Gandalf Mandate)
• Week 3: Sub-creators for “Our Time”